Tucson airport getting new flights to Houston, Portland and Seattle

Tucson travelers will soon have some new flying options from Tucson International Airport, as Southwest Airlines is adding a new nonstop flight to Houston and Alaska Airlines is resuming nonstops to Portland, Oregon, and adding flights to Seattle.

Starting Nov. 4, Southwest will fly nonstop to Houston’s William P. Hobby Airport and back to Tucson, Sundays through Fridays.

Since Hobby is a major hub for Southwest, which accounts for about 90% of traffic there, Tucson travelers will gain connecting options to places including several Florida cities; Cancún, Mexico; New Orleans; New York; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and Washington, D.C., TIA noted.

Danette Bewley, president and CEO of the Tucson Airport Authority, said Southwest’s new Houston service couldn’t come at a better time as Tucson moves into its important winter tourism season.

This weekend, Alaska Airlines is resuming a daily nonstop flight from TIA to Portland, Oregon, and adding two daily nonstops to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, for a total of three per day.

Meanwhile, low-cost carrier Allegiant Air tentatively plans to resume twice-weekly nonstop flights to Las Vegas on Nov. 20 and resume nonstops to Provo, Utah; and Indianapolis in February. An Allegiant seasonal nonstop from Tucson, to Bellingham, Washington, remains indefinitely suspended.

Allegiant also announced recently that it would extend service on 29 seasonal routes, including its Tucson-Las Vegas nonstop, from February through April.

With the launch of Southwest’s new Houston Hobby flights, passengers will be able to fly between Tucson and 13 nonstop destination airports: Atlanta, Chicago Midway, Chicago O’Hare, Dallas/Fort Worth, Denver, Houston Hobby, Houston Intercontinental, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Portland, San Francisco and Seattle.

Flights to Minneapolis-St. Paul are tentatively scheduled to resume in December on Delta Air Lines and Sun Country Airlines, while Southwest is tentatively planning to relaunch flights to San Diego and San Jose in 2021.

Though Tucson is recovering some air service lost to the pandemic, airlines may be looking to cut flights or routes in the near future, as Congress has failed to reach agreement on a new coronavirus aid package as the industry’s initial emergency funding expired Oct. 1.